The Yorkshire Ripper question?

One positive result of the missed opportunities during the Ripper investigations is the development of the HOLMES computer system which allows all police forces to input data and seeks for connections. Back in the '80s each police force had boxes and boxes of information and thus things were missed. It wasn't all down to poor methods, the technology didn't exist.

The idea of a harsher penalty being a deterrent for these kinds of criminals doesn't really make sense if you think about it. These aren't your average blokes logically weighing up whether to switch energy providers. Serial killers are typically driven by a deep compulsion to kill, and fantasise about the specific way they want to do it for years. It consumes their thoughts. They don't have rational reasons for and against it that we would be able to understand, so it's not like they'd think, "Well, I was going to go out and commit a heinous crime, but they've brought in the death sentence so I'll stay in and watch TV." Also, lots of them have delusions that they are too special or clever to be caught, or that it's somehow their duty to commit these crimes regardless of the consequences.

Well I promise you the prison service cannot afford that!!

£200.

Hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!

😂😂😂😂😂

The death penalty just isn't the cheap option you'd think it would be, it can drag on for a very long time - cut and pasted:

Why is the death penalty so expensive?

• Legal costs: Almost all people who face the death penalty cannot afford their own attorney. The state must assign public defenders or court-appointed lawyers to represent them (the accepted practice is to assign two lawyers), and pay for the costs of the prosecution as well.
• Pre-trial costs: Capital cases are far more complicated than non-capital cases and take longer to go to trial. Experts will probably be needed on forensic evidence, mental health, and the background and life history of the defendant. County taxpayers pick up the costs of added security and longer pre-trial detention.
• Jury selection: Because of the need to question jurors thoroughly on their views about the death penalty, jury selection in capital cases is much more time consuming and expensive.
• Trial: Death-penalty trials can last more than four times longer than non-capital trials, requiring juror and attorney compensation, in addition to court personnel and other related costs.
• Incarceration: Most death rows involve solitary confinement in a special facility. These require more security and other accommodations as the prisoners are kept for 23 hours a day in their cells.
• Appeals: To minimize mistakes, every prisoner is entitled to a series of appeals. The costs are borne at taxpayers’ expense. These appeals are essential because some inmates have come within hours of execution before evidence was uncovered proving their innocence.

In 2021, the average time between sentencing and execution was 233 months, which is more than 19 years.

Well as it stands we DO treat prisoners like this humanely. And that's how it's going to stay......

It's only on mumsnet that people type away they would do this or that, they wouldn't! They wouldn't get past the prison gate! Too scared!

He was in Broadmoor and had ongoing treatment for a severe and enduring mental health disorder.
I think we as a country have a responsibility to keep the public safe but also to be humane to people who have committed awful crimes.

Cost me about £200 to have DDog pts. Vet and veterinary nurse came to the house. So shouldn’t cost much more for an inhumane criminal. Though I doubt anyone would have talked as kindly to him as they did to DDog.

No, being attacked is absolutely not part of prison life. If you're an 18 stone murderer with a powerful gang behind you, you are not going to be attacked. If you are in specific danger of being attacked, you will be kept separate from those likely to attack you. For sure prisons are violent places, but that is not the reason people are sent there, and frankly the Home Office should be doing much more to address this issue. Fortunately we now have a Prisons Minister who has the will to do so, so I hope he is given adequate resources for that purpose. The punishment is simply being deprived of liberty.

There's no "probably" about it, by the time they came to trial the death penalty was well and truly abolished. My original point in mentioning them was that the existence of the death penalty at the time they started killing did not deter them one iota. The concept of the deterrent value of killing criminals is a myth.

But you need to acknowledge the world you actually live in.

Aren't they more valuable doing the jobs they're qualified for?

I can just imagine the outrage the day some hate figure gets acquitted by a jury of media studies and politics lecturers.

This.
Killing people to demonstrate that killing people is wrong is insane. And it doesn't work: people continue to kill other people regardless of whether the death penalty exists.

It's in the Daily Express so it MUST be true.

Presumably that includes the cost of prison staff (so helping the unemployment figures), food (business for the catering industry) and similar.

If this is right (& I have still to be convinced) seems like it's keeping money in circulation which is always a good thing.

Security and staff.

It's worth it to have saved the lives of the women who he didn't murder after he was caught. The death penalty is inherently wrong for a myriad of reasons.

@SpunkyKoala I think you have hit the nail on the head with your post. Many of the big time killers were from an era when we did not have the techniques we have now. Police were known to be less than correct with their tactics. The 1980s was the heyday of the serial killers. We have to deal with the remainder of these people but many are now gone. Hopefully we won't have to deal with the same horrors as we have in the past. Guilt is much easier to prove nowadays.

I am not advocating for a system where murderers are killed by other inmates. What I'm saying is that people who think the death penalty is barbaric don't support/like/feel sorry/advocate for these murderers. When notorious murderers die in prison whether at the hands of other prisoners or by natural causes, even people who oppose the death penalty will probably think 'good riddance' rather than 'that's a shame'.

I still think that it is wrong for the state to execute its own citizens.

It is actually quite an impressive sum when you compare it to the amount of a pension annually. Why did it cost so much to keep him incarcerated? 32 years x £12,000 is only around £385,000.

So we kill people based on their trial then science develops and evidence is disproven and oooops he wasn’t guilty at all, what do we do he’s already dead ???? Stuffing him in a prison at least leave room for correction of errors

@thepariscrimefiles

"I am absolutely opposed to the death penalty. If I heard that Rose West had been killed by a fellow inmate, I would be quite glad."

so you would rather have a system of chaos where another baddie does it for you?

I wasn't suggesting that it acted as a deterrent, I was simply saying that that was probably the reason they were not given the death penalty. I remember the Moors murders very clearly, we weren't far away, and my mother offered to execute them personally, the details in the trial were so very disturbing.

Good for you 👏🏻